


Where We Are

by lavender_musings



Category: Ride or Die (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Heavy Angst, Hurt, Multi, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26612782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavender_musings/pseuds/lavender_musings
Summary: After it’s all said and done, where do they go? A peak into Mona, Colt and Logan’s lives following the RoD book 1 finale.
Relationships: Colt Kaneko/Main Character (Ride or Die), Logan/Main Character (Ride or Die), Mona/Main Character (Ride or Die)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Where We Are

**MONA WAKES TO** the dampish smell of blood, piss and something else she cannot place - something bitter and pungent that burns through her nostrils, reminding her of the inevitable misery of the rising day.

“Up and about, inmates!” the order soon follows, beckoning her and others into an orderly fashion. She hears the groans and silent protests of some inmates, most still reeling from last night’s revolt. The culprit of the riot; a woman, a _mother_ she used to know, going up against the guards with a razor-edged blade she’d secretly traded for a pack of cigarettes. It has been all but a blur after that, everyone getting theirs, jailed or jailer.

It is after the fight’s over when what side one’s on is a matter of consequence. Jailers, clean-cut as they supposedly are, retreat back to their respective corners and wash the dried blood off of their hands. The _jailee_ , on the other hand; they lose their breakfast privileges. Among many others.

She shuffles to her feet, one hand instinctively clutching the bullet wound at the side of her abdomen. It’s almost perfectly healed by now, yet she can’t help but attempt to cover it. In her mind, it’s _always_ gushing with blood, and she’s still _there_ on the damned floor parking lot, watching them drive away.

“You look like hell, hoiden.” One of her inmates smirks at her. Mona is well aware. With her hair disheveled and eyes bloodshot, it doesn’t take a genius to guess she’s had better days.

“I look better than you.” She deadpans anyway, without missing a single beat. She may be captured, but she’s still herself. She’s still Mona - a girl renowned for not biting back her words, and why should she change? 

They won’t be able to break her spirit, she swears to herself. She won’t let them.

“Ain’t that the truth.” The older woman chuckles, and something about the sound leaves Mona intrigued. It’s not a cynical laugh a regular pain in the ass inmate would give - she’s well acquainted with those, but no, this is different. There’s the wise twinkle of a person who’s been hell and back in her eyes. Someone who’s walked through the bad towns.

She still doesn’t trust her, she doesn’t trust anyone, but she finds herself starting to respect her.

Little by little.

“Say, you never explained how you ended up in this shithole.” The woman casually says as they are being ushered into a single line by the guards. 

“It’s… stupid.” Mona admits. Some would argue it’s courageous, noble even, but she knows better. What’s that saying again? Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

By that logic, shame’s on her and her only. It’s twice in a row now that she’s let a girl cost her freedom, there’s no doubt about it.

The woman raises an inquisitive eyebrow. “Tell me anyway.”

Mona sighs, feeling the insides of her conflict with one another. What’s there to say anyway? That she’s had the ride of her life with the crew of her life but didn’t know when to walk away? Is that truly what she’s been reduced to?

“I trusted a girl, once.” She begins, slowly. “And then, sometime later… I took a bullet for another." 

"Damn, that _is_ stupid. Plausible, but stupid.”

“Told you it was.” Mona hums in bashful agreement. There’s a moment of silence after, and the very weight of her memories fill the void. The pink dices, the late night conversations, the tattoos. Loving her to the moon and back, and everything in between. 

Compelled by an unknown force, she opens her mouth and adds. “But this last girl - she deserved it. She deserved someone taking a bullet for her.”

There’s a knowing, pained smile on the older woman’s worn off features. “And what did _you_ deserve?”

She has no answer whatsoever for that question, and her silence stretches long into her durance.

* * *

**COLT EMERGES FROM** the shadows, half consumed by them. It’s late, quite late; somewhere, someplace in one of those hours where the words “dark” and “black” don’t even begin to do the night any justice.

Beneath him, Los Angeles sleeps, oblivious to the peasant-alike problems of men and women who live in the shadows. Sun will come up in a few hours, and _they_ will bask in its warmth. They will eat and pray and sin by the glamorous lights of Hollywood without a single thought for the ill-omened spared. They will not recount the story of the girl who got away.

He, on the other hand, will. He _does_. He remembers the match made in hell.

He slips past the fog of scarlet-streaked memories and glances at the expensive watch on his wrist, annoyed. His contact is over half an hour late as it is. Can’t anyone do a good fucking job in this damned town?

His answer arrives five minutes after, only to find a grisly Colt at the ends of his tether. “Talk.” Colt seethes, bringing his face dangerously close to that of the stranger. “Is it done?”

“It - it is, yeah.” His contact stammers. “That should be everything you need to execute the plan.”

“Good.” At the faint edge of his attention, he notices the way the feeble man shivers. A wave of repulsion spreads through his chest. He used to be just like him, weak and afraid, begging for a chance to prove himself at the skirts at his father.

No more. No more treading water in a college he doesn’t give two shits about, no more doing the bidding of others, answering at their beck and call like a groveling pawn. There’s no distance he won’t go to, no line he will hesitate to cross. 

Freedom, he remembers telling her, isn’t given. It is earned. 

He is more than ready to take it back, take it _all_ back - claim what’s his by birthright. He can already picture it, crystal clear, the lowly crews cowering at his sight, him being in charge of what comes and goes around. It has been his vision for so long.

He will rule, and perhaps one day, she will choose to rule alongside him, too.

“Tell them Kaneko’s son says hi, will you?” He grins, deeming one last glance at the contact’s pathetic figure. “Tell them I’m coming for them.” He watches, beyond amused, as the man hurries away to what he assumes to be a safe distance.

Once again, he is alone, and the day’s starting to break this once. Shadows dissolving, lies evaporating, revealing the starkness of reality in their wake. The truth - _his_ truth.

With that, he disappears into the final grays of the night.

* * *

**LOGAN KNOWS THAT** a life on the run is no way to live.

He knows it the way the ant knows bread and the poor know injustice. He’s been on the run all throughout his life himself. He knows the unreliability of it, the packed bags and suitcases always waiting in the trunk of his car. He knows to possess few personal belongings and even fewer mementos. He knows not to leave his ordeals unfinished, ties uncut.

He also knows the severity of his mistake.

It has started the day Kaneko enlisted him to gain the trust of the daughter of a cop. The day he dodged police cars with her on tow and first-kissed her in front of her little house, and he has been damned ever since. 

For the first time since he’s known himself, he just doesn’t want to go. His feet keep wanting him to turn around and pedal the gas, right back where it started. And with every new city he drives, the possibility of such fantasies lingers less and less.

Here’s the thing: He’s not the one folding the carts this time. It’s not _his_ future on the line. He has to do it, for her. He has to drive till the ends of earth and never ever look back.

Because finally, he’s found something worth driving for.

Still, in his moments of weakness, his imagination entertains forbidden futures. A future where he gets to hold her - his arms around her, his wits nowhere about him. 

Those what-could-have-been’s; achingly beautiful, impossibly untouched, painstakingly impossible. Forcibly, he yanks his mind off them and compels his volition -what’s left of it, at least- to focus on the road ahead. He has to, see? He has to sustain his resolve.

Otherwise, he’ll dream of the what-could-have-been’s, and _that_ \- that will hurt worst of all.

“Earth to Logan. You alright man?” His cousin interrupts his thoughts, bringing him back to the reality. He feels the solid ground beneath his feet once again.

“No.” He tells Vaughn the truth. He’s not okay. He never would have thought that he would find the love of his life only to say goodbye. That he’d have to stare into a barrel of a gun pointed by her dad and to hear her beg.

He’s always known life is unfair, but dammit - nobody has told him just how much.

“You don’t have to go.” Vaughn offers, though without much hope. “We’ll work something out. We always do-”

“This isn’t one of those times, man.” Logan interrups him. They both know it. This time, it’s final. It’s him and the road.

One last time, he turns the keys in the ignition. He revels in the way the engine roars to life, a sound that could make or break him once upon a time.

Once upon a time, Logan lifts a single hand in salutation to LA.

He drives.

And all the once upon a times in the world fades away.


End file.
